Can someone please explain this?? (RC5)

[Double Trouble]

Ok, I've had at least one machine cracking RC5 for many many moons (at least 2 years)... There's blocks, packets, work units, keys, etc etc etc.

From the distributed.net documentation I gather that 1 block= 1 packet. 1 packet can contain 1 or more work units. When I request packets from the server, I set a blocksize of 33 (the largest). Presumably that means each block or packet will contain a large number of work units, and it takes longer to complete 1 packet. When I flush the work, it seems the number of packets is reported in the stats, not the work units. Am I missing something?? Doesn't that mean that it would be better to get the smallest possible packet so you get the highest number of 'packets completed' on the stats??

Help clear my confusion 🙂 How do the packets/blocks, work units etc all fit together in terms of the stats reports??

Thanks!!

 

[TwoFace]

tagej, rest assured that you're not the first one to be confused about this 😱

1 Block = 1 Work Unit = 1 x 2^28keys

1 packet can contain anything from 1 block to 32, what you do when you ask for packets with size 33 is that you request only the largest packets (you'll also get smaller ones if the server doesn't have large ones) with 32 blocks/work units in them. The reason this is a good thing to do is that each packet is the same size no matter how many keys/work units it actually contains (don't ask me how this works I don't know 😱) so you do more work with the same amount of network traffic thus making DNet's job and if you're using Mika's his job too alot easier and MUCH less bandwidth limited 🙂

The number of blocks you've done at DNet = the number of 1x2^28 keys you've done... hope this helps some at least 😉

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-FaceMy stats:
RC5
OGR-25
Seti
Gamma Flux

 

[Double Trouble]

efun, that would make sense.... But this is the part I don't understand. I started flushing some work yesterday (sent 3 files). I got the reply files from D.net saying about 30,000 work units had been flushed and about 6000 packets. When I looked at the stats this morning, it said 6400 blocks on my stats. I guess I'm still confused as to what exactly is being measured/reported by the stats.

For clarification, I have to use the email flush/fetch method of getting and sending work to and from the server since I'm behind a firewall that doesn't let any of the stuff through.

TwoFace, that's what I thought, which is why I started requesting the large blocks -- it gives you the same number of packets (file size is the same), but a larger number of work units. Yet when I flush the work, it seems like the number of packets is reported as 'work completed', not the number of work units. Anyone know what gives on that one?

I can email the 'flush results' emails that I received if that helps.

 

[kranky]

Your stats are off because of a backlog at dnet, explained in this thread.

Even though email flushing might report packets (instead of work units), your stats will indeed be credited for the number of work units those packets contained.

I did email fetch/flush for a long time and the stats were accurate.

 

[Double Trouble]

Thanks for the info folks, I'll just keep an eye on the stats for a few days to see what shakes out. 🙂

Here I was all happy to have added 30,000 work units, and then I look at the stats and it says only around 6,400 or so. Grrrr. 😉

I'm starting to unleash the cracking monster.... my blocks will skyrocket in the next few weeks!

 

[Russ]

tagej,

If you flush to one of the pproxies, or the Team Round Robin, you can see your full measure of contribution at the team stats page even when Dnet is fuggled. Just add the following to your ini files and restart the client:

[networking]
autofindkeyserver=no
keyserver=proxy.teamanandtech.com

For best performance, it's a also a good idea to change your Dnet ID to rc5@tacube.com.😀

Russ, NCNE